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Beyond Good and Evil (Quzil)
The rain blew in off the ocean in great grey sheets and Quzil pulled the hood of his traveling cloak tighter. Desolace was certainly living up to its name, the scraggly grasslands of the coast had given way to the wasteland of the interior. “Dis place definitely be cursed,” he said to the blood-red raptor padding along behind him, “it get more rain den Stranglethorn Vale, but da whole place is dead! I hate da rain.” The raptor, Takoda, weighed in with her opinion on the situation by gazing longingly down the path behind her. The path led back to Shadowprey Village, the tiny fishing village the Darkspear Trolls had carved out in this inhospitable place. Why the Horde was so hell-bent on establishing a presence in this awful place was beyond Quzil’s understanding but the hospitality and hot meals were a welcome change. Takoda obviously felt the same way. “Sorry, girl,” Quzil explained patting her gently on the head. “We got tree days ta get ta Orgrimmar ‘an I wanna make it ta Ghostwalka by nightfall. Unless joo wanna be eaten by centaurs?” he asked rhetorically. Don’t be an idiot. Takoda’s look and body language said as she stalked past Quzil with an indignant flick of her whip-like tail splashing the water that had accumulated between her scales on his face. Obviously she wasn’t fond of the rain either. The trolls regarded raptors as the most-cunning members of the animal kingdom and Takoda was at times too clever by half. Quzil often wondered who the real brains of this outfit were; he made a mental note to talk to a tailor acquaintance of his about fashioning some sort of rain poncho for her. Perhaps with some of the feathers and beads she favored for decoration… *** Above the dull gray clouds, the sun climbed towards its zenith; below them the cold rain and wind continued unabated. To Quzil’s dismay, thunder could be heard in the distance. He was wary, his bow drawn and an arrow ready to be loosed at any foe that revealed itself. The road he was following had entered a ravine and the boulders strewn about the flanking hills offered ample spots for an ambush. Through the rain ahead, he saw something lying in the middle of the road. He quickened his pace and with subtle hand motions signaled Takoda to follow and keep an eye out for trouble. As he drew closer, he saw that it was a body laying face down in the mud. A female draenei Quzil realized. He had never actually seen a draenei before but had heard plenty of stories about these refugees from the orc’s home world. The people that the orcs had pushed to the brink of extinction; the people that had been fighting the Burning Legion for countless millennia; the people who – and Quzil had a hard time believing this one – had recently embraced a form of shamanism. There was an exotic beauty about her, Quzil decided, almost as if she were some kind of cross between a satyr and a troll, but any beauty he might have seen in her was marred by death. Several large gaping wounds on her back still oozed blue blood which mixed with the rain and flowed down the slope past Quzil’s feet. She hadn’t been dead long, an hour at most. He had been so transfixed by the dead alien that he had failed to notice the smaller figure hunched nearby sobbing softly. Both became aware of the other simultaneously; Quzil jumped back slightly and the young draenei girl gave out a frightened yell and scooted away from him dragging a maimed leg. Quzil’s heart cried out for the injured girl. “What kind of monster?” He wondered aloud. Almost as if to answer his question, Takoda stiffened and issued a low warning growl. Acting on instinct, Quzil pulled a flare from under his cloak, primed it, and lobbed it in the direction Takoda was glaring at. There! Quzil said to himself as he leveled his bow at the wavering form his flare had illuminated. He was about to release his arrow when an undead male seemed to appear out of midair. “Watch where you throw those things,” he said in a phlegmy voice, “and put that away, you’ll put someone’s eye out.” The draenei girl screamed in terror and tried to crawl away but the forsaken stalked over to her, grabbed her roughly by the shoulder, and effortlessly tossed her back towards the body of her mother. Quzil felt sick as she landed on her injured leg shrieking in pain and buried her face in her mother’s robe. “What’d you think?” the undead asked flashing Quzil a disgusting smile. His leather armor was of high quality and seemed well oiled and cared for and two wicked-looking daggers hung from each hip. “A nice little trap I set up here.” “Joo did dis?” Quzil asked incredulously. “Well, it didn’t start as a trap per se, more like opportunity knocked. You see, the female was easy; she barely put up a fight and I was about to finish off the girl when I see her clutching this,” he reached into his pocket and pulled out a crystal amulet that pulsed a light blue. He moved his decayed hand side-to-side causing it to sway. “It’s a beacon; the little brat activated it when I attacked. Someone’s coming for her, and I intend to be here when they arrive. Unfortunately two dead bodies tend to make someone suspicious, but an injured child on the other hand… Who can resist saving some precious child?” He saw Quzil eying the girl’s maimed leg. “Well, I can’t have her trying to run off on me,” he cackled. A foul, raspy laugh. Quzil trembled with rage. This flew in the face of everything he had learned about honorable combat. Using a child as bait!? It was so… underhanded, so wrong. “She was unarmed! Where is da honor in dis?” The rogue laughed and held up his arm pointing to a small scorch mark on one of his bracers. “She was hardly unarmed, she was trained in the use of some magic, enough to fend off some of the local wildlife or a centaur perhaps, but against me… well its obvious how that turned out.” He adopted an indignant tone, “You trolls and orcs, always preaching about your precious honor. Like you’ve never used a situation to your advantage against a weaker foe. It’s called ‘tactics,’” he said condescendingly. “Dat was different!” Quzil exclaimed thinking about the mage he had ambushed awhile back in Stonetalon, “dey were armed and in Horde lands-“ “Was it?” the undead interrupted calmly, “Was it so different? In case you haven’t noticed, we’re at war. Granted our – your – leaders haven’t officially declared it; Thrall and Jaina are probably off having tea and cakes as we speak, but it’s on. And I assure you, there are plenty, plenty of people on their side who wouldn’t think twice about slitting your throat in your sleep, of killing the families of everyone you care about. All’s fair in war. The way I see it, the more of them,” the last word dripped with contempt, “I kill, the more frightened of us they will be. Maybe too frightened to attack us. Plus maybe I just like mindless slaughter.” Quzil was speechless; he could see the logic of what the forsaken had just said, but every fiber of his being screamed at the wrongness of it. Takoda, who like the situation even less, hissed menacingly at the rogue and Quzil gripped his bow tightly and stood to his full seven foot height, eyes locked with the undead who chuckled and waved one of his daggers in front of Quzil’s face. “Do you want to die today, troll?” he asked. “Give your life for someone who will just die anyways? You have a choice, die an inglorious death by my hand or take your little pet and leave. Let the people who have the stones to do what needs to be done work and take your obsolete concepts of honor elsewhere.” Defeated, Quzil hunched his shoulders and began waling away. There was no way he could beat this rogue, especially at this range. Takoda glared at the forsaken a few seconds more and turned to follow. As the undead’s mocking laughter and taunts faded in the falling rain, a single tear slid down Quzil’s cheek. *** Hours passed and the sun drifted slowly towards the western horizon; the draenei girl lay with her head on her mother’s cold body staring with empty eyes down the rain-shrouded road. Every few moments, the sky would flash casting long shadows on the rapidly darkening landscape causing her to flinch slightly and the flash was soon followed by the rumble of thunder echoing down the ravine. Over the din the staccato sound of hoof beats could be heard; the girl raised her head weakly as the mounted figure leapt deftly from the back of his mount and ran to her side. He was a tall human clad in shining plate armor, a massive two-handed mace slung across his back, and he seemed to give off a soft white light. He placed his hands over the girl’s leg and muttered a short prayer; a wave of golden light washed over her and her wounds were healed and her spirit renewed. With her sense returning to her, she frantically tried to warn her rescuer in her native tongue of the impending danger but he just frowned, unable to understand her. Suddenly with surprising speed, he whirled around while unlinking his mace and swung it in a wide arc catching the approaching rogue on the shoulder. The undead recovered from the blow and with a snarl lunged at the paladin. The two were closely matched, the rogue clearly had not expected such a powerful foe and pulled every trick, ability, skill his racing mind could conjure. Near death and desperate, he saw his window. As the human raised his mace high to deliver the final crushing blow, the rogue struck: jamming both his daggers into the weak spots on the sides of his foe’s chest armor, just above the beltline. Paralyzed by the pain, the mace slipped from the paladin’s hands and fell behind him with a dull thud as he collapsed to his knees. Grinning perversely with victory, the undead grasped both sides of the human’s head and twisted; with a wet crack the glow surrounding the paladin faded and he fell motionless to the ground. The rogue knew he was mortally wounded, one of his legs was crushed and the paladin’s foul holy magic had done irreparable damage to his undead flesh; the glowing green ooze that functioned as his blood flowed freely from several wounds. As he rose uneasily to his feet, he fixed his murderous gaze on the girl. If he was fated to die here, he would drag one last soul with him into oblivion. Pulling his daggers from the paladin’s corpse, he lurched towards the cowering figure. Suddenly a loud whistle caused the rogue to stop in his track and turn to see where the sound had come from. The look of surprise on his face turned to rage when lightning illuminated a lithe figure standing atop a nearby boulder, bow drawn back. The next thing the undead knew, he was on his back staring at a white-feathered arrow sticking from his chest. He struggled ineffectively to get back on his feet. Moving with the grace and speed of a jungle cat, Quzil jumped down from his hiding spot and ran towards the struggling undead, Takoda close on his heels. He hadn’t made it far down the road before his conscience and Takoda’s disproving looks spurred him to turn back and conceal himself behind a boulder overlooking the forsaken’s “trap”. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but he was prepared to do whatever it took to prevent that girl from falling prey to the rogue’s evil machinations. Planting a two-toed foot on the rogue’s chest holding him down, Quzil leaned in towards the dying undead’s face; his tusks just inches from the other’s scowling glare. Rain was running down them and dripping into the forsaken’s eyes “Joo were right, mon,” Quzil said, his voice like steel as thunder rumbled, “I did have choice. An’ I chose to do da honorable ting, because at da end of da day, dat’s all dat be seperatin us from da likes of da Scourge or da Burnin Legion.” With a feral growl, the forsaken grasped weakly at Quzil’s neck but the last of this strength left him and his hands fell back as the yellow glow of his eyes faded to black. Satisfied that the fiend was truly dead, Quzil stood and looked over to see Takoda gently nuzzling the collapsed form of the draenei child who had apparently fainted. “I can’t say dat I blame her,” he said, “I just hope dat she don’t freak out when she wakes up.” Removing his cloak and warpping it around the shivering girl, he lifted her limp form and began walking north. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with her, strolling into Nigel’s Point with a wounded child and two dead Alliance citizens down the way wouldn’t look good; he knew some common, but not nearly enough to talk his way out of this. He’d think of something though. Suddenly the rain didn’t bother him all that much. - Written by Quzil Category:Stories